The present invention is directed to a system for decoding information in the form of characters in a bar code.
Lately, the use of bar codes intended to be read by optical scanning equipment has become universal in such application as the retail grocery industry. One particular form of bar code known as the Universal Product Code (UPC) now appears on many products sold in grocery stores.
Briefly described, the UPC symbol consists of a series of light and dark parallel bars in a rectangular format. The left side of the symbol includes a guard bar followed by several characters of the UPC code and a center bar. To the right of the center bar are several more characters of the UPC code and another guard bar.
Each character is composed of seven data elements termed modules and the center bar pattern consists of a fixed pattern of light and dark bars.
Additional details of the UPC code may be obtained from "UPC Symbol Specification", May 1973, published by Distribution Number Bank, 1725 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 and which is hereby incorporated by reference.